A baby in a stroller sleeps listening to loud city noises, from ten horns beeping to two motorbikes roaring, until awakened by the soft chirp of one sparrow.

"Nothing defines the songs of the great American songbook more richly and persuasively than their urban sensibility. During the first half of the twentieth century, songwriter such as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, and Thomas 'Fats' Waller flourished in New York City, the home of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Harlem. Many of these remarkably deft and forceful creators were native New Yorkers. Others got to Gotham as fast as they could. Either way, it was as if, from their vantage point on the West Side of Manhattan, these artists were describing America--not its geography of politics, but its heart--to Americans and to the world at large. In City songs and American life, 1900-1950, renowned author and broadcaster Michael Lasser offers an evocative and probing account of the popular songs--including some written originally for the stage or screen--that America heard, and sang, and danced to during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century. Lasser demonstrates how the spirit of the teeming city pervaded these wildly diverse songs. Often that spirit took form overtly in songs that portrayed the glamor of Broadway of the energy and jazz age culture of Harlem. But a city-bred spirit--or even a specifically New York City way of feeling and talking--also infused many other widely known and loved songs, stretching from the early decades of the century to the twenties (the age of the flapper, bathtub gin, and women's right to vote), the Great Depression, and, finally, World War II. Throughout this remarkable book, Lasser emphasizes how the soul of city life, as echoes in the nation's songs, developed and changed in tandem with economic, social, and political currents in America as a whole"--Dust jacket flap.

After several years in Europe, author Cecilia Kochanowski returns to the United States with her husband and two daughters. Sadly resigning themselves to the fact that they cannot afford to return to a Manhattan home-and while wasted on jet lag-Kochanowski manages to buy a faded yellow cottage in a sleepy village nestled in the Hudson Valley. When moving day actually comes, Kochanowski wishes it away, even though she spent months anticipating the momentous occasion. All aspects of the move back to the States are a shock: the commute to work is long, the local varmints voracious, and the cottage nearly blows up from a gas leak only five days after the family moves in. Though a product of the American suburbs, Kochanowski quickly realizes that she no longer remembers how to live in the country of her birth-even less so than her Polish husband. Will their newly purchased but aging house ever feel like home? As they negotiate their prejudice against their new home, the family confronts the village zoning board, a cowboy plumber, and a coven of petty bureaucrats on their chaotic odyssey of home renovation, uninformed gardening, and sporadic child rearing in the witty memoir Plumbersutra.

The name Busby Berkeley, creator of the dances for films such as 42nd Street, Babes in Arms, and Million Dollar Mermaid, is synonymous with the spectacular musical production number. Films, television commercials, and MTV videos continue to use "Berkeleyesque" techniques long after Berkeley himself and the genre that nourished him have faded from the scene. The first major analysis of Berkeley's career on stage and screen, Showstoppers emphasizes his relationship to a colorful, somewhat disreputable tradition of American popular entertainment: that of P. T. Barnum, minstrel shows, vaudeville, Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, burlesque, and the Ziegfeld Follies. Rubin shows how Berkeley absorbed this declining theatrical tradition during his years as a Broadway dance director and then transferred it to the new genre of the early movie musical. With lively prose and engaging photographs, Showstoppers explores new ways of looking at Busby Berkeley, at the musical genre, and at individual films. Appropriate for both specialists and general readers, Showstoppers is an exuberant study of a figure whose career, Rubin notes, "provides an extraordinarily rich point of convergence for a wide range of cultural and artistic contexts".

An Irish Lullaby by Louis Michael Manzo inspires belief in the miraculous. Father Sean O'Connor is semi-retired, and at 75 years old he is back at his beloved Saint Aloysius Parish. Reflecting, holding his Medal of Honor medallion, he realizes time has somehow escaped him. Father O'Connor has seen God's miracles in countless lives and situations throughout his priesthood. His exploits are cherished and unforgettable - "O'Connor's Miracles." When a devout young Catholic girl, Angela Sanchez, has an abortion, the ripple effect is unimaginable. Father O'Connor and members of his parish become entangled in the controversy. Angela's decision touches lives in unforeseen ways, especially for Aubrey Fitzgibbon, the President of the Board of the local family planning center. Aubrey holds a dark secret. There are no coincidences with God. "Sometimes God chooses to put us in the most extraordinary places at the most unordinary times" to perform the impossible.

A summer parade, a drummer parade, a magical bucket-and-bowl serenade! What begins with one boy’s beat on a kettle soon spreads to pots and pans and cartons and cans all across the neighborhood. When everyone joins in, together they create the catchy, driving tempo of a bright, hot DRUM CITY! Get ready to make some noise with this upbeat, lyrical, and diverse picture book!

“Quick, cutting wit . . . a keen ear.”—The New York Times Book Review Hollywood’s newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelsen, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelsen wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third-biggest filmmaker in America. It’s the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep—until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelsen’s ex-wife in a small Connecticut town, she’s nothing like he expects. She has some unwanted—and very nasty—mob connections, which means Elvis could be opening an East Coast branch of his P.I. office...at the bottom of the Hudson River. “Elvis [Cole] is the greatest . . . [ he is] perhaps the best detective to come along since Travis McGee.”—San Diego Tribune “[Crais is] far better at the private-eye-novel racket than most writers.”—Newsweek

CMJ New Music Report is the primary source for exclusive charts of non-commercial and college radio airplay and independent and trend-forward retail sales. CMJ's trade publication, compiles playlists for college and non-commercial stations; often a prelude to larger success.

CMJ New Music Report is the primary source for exclusive charts of non-commercial and college radio airplay and independent and trend-forward retail sales. CMJ's trade publication, compiles playlists for college and non-commercial stations; often a prelude to larger success.